Among the Clouds
by noyz22
Summary: Thousands of years ago man learned to fly, and now the world soars through the sky without the help of any machines. Somehow, Morgan is born the only human in three thousand years that can't even float. Ostracized by society and family alike, Morgan must learn to touch the sky before the dreaded 17th birthday ceremony, or face consequences beyond anyone's imagination.


_Sometimes I dream that no one in the world can fly, that I'm the only one so lucky. I soar over their heads and laugh at their envious faces as they squint up at me against the sun. It feels good, fills me with a smug sense of power over them. All that see me high above them, laughing and playing among the clouds, despair at my freedom. _

_If only reality could be so kind._

One

Flying is all well and good, but no one talks about how rough the landing can be.

"You suck, bro."

Grunting, I struggled painfully to my feet without acknowledging my companion. My body felt as if it were covered in one giant, pulsing bruise, but I gritted my teeth against its throbbing. Today I would succeed, _had _to succeed. I only had a week left.

"You're going again? Just give it up, bro. You're never gonna fly in time for the exam."

"Shut up." I muttered darkly as I climbed the hot metal ladder for the fourth time in as many hours. The fly platform's wooden support beams creaked under my weight as I ascended.

Everyone in my family, in the whole world, could fly. Even my five year old baby sister filled our tiny home with mocking laughter on a daily basis as she floated from room to room. That I, a sixteen year old, never in my life even so much as hovered met with sad eyes and cruel whispers. I would soon be one of them. I knew it in my bones. One day I _would_ touch the clouds.

"You're just gonna hurt yourself, bro."

"Shut _up, _Sparks!" I shouted down at the droid from my perch fifteen feet above it.

The companion droid let out a metallic sound not unlike an exacerbated sigh and swiveled its shiny domed head from side to side. Inching closer to the edge of the four by five platform, I took a moment to stick my tongue out at my companion down below before sucking in a deep, steadying breath. Below me the rubber landing pad glistened in the summer heat, waiting for me to belly flop onto its surface once more.

"Not this time. Not this time, for sure." I promised it, bouncing lightly on the balls of my feet.

"It's starting to get dark. We should head home soon, or we'll miss curfew." Sparks chimed just as I braced to take the jump.

"Screw the curfew! Nobody gets in trouble for being five minutes over." I called down through hitched breath as I regained my balance.

I would never admit that jumping frightened me. The ground always seemed to rush towards me, as if it could smell my approach and wanted to devour me. I stood looking down at it, feeling as if I could almost see it breathing, waiting for its next morsel. Swallowing painfully against the knot of anxiety in my throat, I forced myself to shake off the dark feelings. Flying had to be fearless. I could be fearless. I_ could. _

"Remember to keep your eyes open this time, bro!" Sparks called up in a rare example of encouragement.

"Right. Eyes open." I nodded grimly and pulled in another full breath just as a soft breeze plucked at my hair.

Taking this as a sign, I braced my muscles and leaped with all my remaining strength. My jump took me up and away from the safety of the platform, and I desperately willed the wind to catch beneath me, for my body to stay aloft. Hope lifted its head in my heart as the cool air washed over me and seemed to pull at my jumpsuit, but it died in an instant as gravity wrapped a cruel hand around my middle and dragged me back down to the earth with a crunching crash.

The landing hit me harder than usual, knocking the breath from my lungs and scraping my hands and knees raw on impact. Coughing raggedly, I slowly lifted myself up onto all fours and took stock of my new wounds. My left tennis shoe definitely felt tighter as my now twisted ankle began to swell, and my hands and knees throbbed with the loss of two layers of skin. A familiar shame fell over my shoulders with the thickness of a winter blanket, smothering my last spark of hope under its heavy shadow.

"Come on, bro… Let's head home." Sparks whirred gently, bumping his cylindrical body against my right heel.

"Yeah. Home." I sighed, dreading to my core the walk back just as much as the arrival.

Wincing against the new pain in my legs, I stood with some effort and patted Sparks on the head. The droid whistled happily and started towards the park entrance. Following behind at a slower pace, I glumly dipped my head and let my mind wonder in its usual way.

Today had been no better than any day before. Every day after school I walked the three miles to the park, ignoring strangers that flew by overhead. Some paused to observe the walker below them while others sneered openly at me and slowed down to call down taunts and names. I took the stares and the abuse without slowing down. My inability to fly gave me an infamous reputation around town, and anyone that observed me making my slow way down the old road knew me on sight as the "Sprite without Flight". The terrible name had been given to me by my older brother at the age of six, and it stuck, forever branding me an outsider. Very few people knew my real name.

"Morgan!"

Caught completely by surprise, I nearly walked face first into a pole. As if she had read my mind, Crystalia, my only friend in the whole world, hailed me cheerfully as she swooped down to land gracefully beside me. I willed a smile to my face even as I tried to hide it behind my bangs. At least three new scrapes still stung freshly on my chin and cheeks, and I did not want her to see them just yet. My action came too late, and her thin hand darted out to grab my jaw and tilt my face towards the sun before I could stop her.

"You were trying to fly again!" She exclaimed, her perfectly plucked eyebrows knitting together in frustration.

Today her furrowed eyebrows flashed bright blue from behind hot pink hair cropped short. I ducked my head farther as my defense mechanisms kicked in against the accusation. Peeking out through my bangs, I noticed this week she had tiny planets swirling within her green irises, and their spinning noticeably picked up space as her eyes narrowed in exacerbation. Before her lecture on safety and helmets could begin, however, a shadow suddenly fell over us from above.

"Curfew is in ten minutes, you two." An officer warned, her stern expression peering down at us from a few feet above our heads.

We nodded nervously, lowering our eyes to the ground as was proper. The policewoman huffed and flew away, her shiny armor nearly blinding in the waning light of the evening sun. I took the momentary distraction to my advantage and started power walking away before Crystalia could start in on me again. My old friend called after me indignantly, but I ignored her. My brain knew well enough that she had nothing to do with my failures today, but my heart held too much shame to face her.

"Don't think you're gonna get away without a piece of my mind, you!" She panted after she managed to keep up, her usually bubbly voice rough with exertion.

Like most flyers, Crystalia lacked speed on the ground, and it had taken her several minutes to catch up to me. Secretly, I loved that. On two legs, at least, she could never beat me. Still, unlike everyone else that knew me and tried to call me friend, she always took care to walk beside me when we hung out so that I would not have to watch her fly. For this and a few other reasons, I had slowly grown to trust her.

"…gonna brain yourself one day! Don't you even worry about dying?" She ranted on, and I did my best to listen to her, I really did, but this lecture I had heard many times before.

Crystalia wanted me to fly almost as much as I did, but she demanded that I take precautions against falling. Every new bruise added fuel to her fire, and each lecture became a little more biting than the last. She meant well, but I hated the training suits she wanted so badly for me to wear. They were all too small, made for children that had not quite mastered the art of avoiding poles, and I found having to put them on ridiculous and insulting. Once I had listened to her, though she would never know, and a group of kids from school had run across me practicing. Their laughter followed me in nightmares for weeks.

"Are you even listening?!"

"Mm? Totally." I nodded without looking at her directly.

We had reached my road by then, and now we stood under the street light that flickered a few feet from my house. The lights always came on early so that when the sun sank below the horizon the streets were already brightened against the darkness of night. The lamp nearest my home leaned severely to the left and seemed perpetually on the brink of going out.

"What did I say?"

"I'm an idiot and should wrap myself in four layers of bubble wrap before I walk outside." I retorted halfheartedly.

"That's not even close, bro." Sparks chimed in for the first time, "She said that you won't pass the exam if you're dead."

"Thanks, Sparks." I muttered sarcastically and tried to busy myself with figuring out Crystalia's outfit of the day.

Her jumpsuit shifted and glittered in the fading light with images of yawning kittens and dancing bunnies, and every inch that they did not cover practically glowed with the strength of its neon green color. The inch or so of cleavage that peeked out above her zipper, pulled down just _so_, sparkled with dark green glitter paint that forced your eyes to blink rapidly or lose their sight. Her face remained, miraculously, clear of any make up beyond her lips, stained the same green as her chest, and her eyes. Somehow, her feet found a way to avoid her extreme sense of style and sported only the common metallic slippers that had become all the rage this year among teenagers. I did notice that they had been tinted green to match the rest of her outfit, though.

"You're going to get _hurt, _Morgan." Crystalia said softly, the change in her tone instantly gaining my attention again.

"I have to keep trying…" I answered seriously, at last feeling sheepish about worrying her so much.

"I know you want to get out of the academy," She began slowly, and I tried to ignore the twist of hate in my gut at its mention as she continued, "But throwing your life away isn't the way to do it."

"If I don't jump, I won't fly. End of story." I shook my head, annoyed that we had reached the same tired argument we had every day.

"Why can't you-"

The first warning bell interrupted whatever Crystalia had begun to say, the high pitched dinging vibrating through the ground beneath us. My old friend shook her head in defeat and gave me a quick hug. I returned it a heartbeat later, breathing in her lilac perfume as if it could somehow give me the strength to face my family. She let go first, pushing me gently out to arm's length to regard me soberly. Her dimples caved in as she frowned and searched my face long enough to make me shift from foot to foot and look away.

"Just…be careful. For me, if not for you." She said after a long moment of tense silence.

I nodded my promise and shrugged her hands off before she could see the tears threatening to fall. With a soft sigh she tensed and took off, flying quickly so as to make it home in time for the final bell. I stood there for a moment longer, wiping my eyes while Sparks whirred cheerfully by my feet. My house loomed a few steps away, its high windows alight with the glowing signs of the people within. A ladder, roughly put together from gathered scraps of metal and wood, stood out glaringly against the white washed walls of the two storied building. I had grown tired of having to climb the oak tree in our back yard to reach my room and built it despite my mother's complaints.

I walked to it slowly, dreading every step that took me closer, and finally placed my right foot on the first rung. The ladder creaked loudly as I put my weight on it, effectively announcing my arrival to the whole household. I could almost feel the sense of foreboding emanating from the living room that waited above me, but I pushed off the ground anyway and made my steady ascent upwards. The ladder the only sound that broke the evening silence, it felt as if the impending night were holding its breath for me.

Nobody had walked or driven anywhere for a long time, and so a hundred years or so ago architects started raising up the entrances of buildings. The practice became so fashionable that now to reach the first floor of almost any building you had to go downstairs, and most skyscrapers had a landing platform every two floors. For a person that could not fly, visiting anyone became a game of parkour. I tried to view the added exercise as a plus, reminding myself that I would be just as scrawny and unfit as everyone else if I had it any easier. I would never understand how it had become beautiful to be thin and toneless, as if somehow having _less _strength had become desirable. The Spartans would have been appalled.

I paused at the top of the landing to let Sparks catch up, taking in one last breath of fresh air. The little companion droid hummed metallically as its rotary blades took it slowly up to the platform. Crickets chirped around me, playing their violins mournfully. Did they have crickets that could not fly? Surely they would ostracize them, too. Or perhaps, in a society as simple as a bug's, no one cared.

Something shifted in the room beyond the front door, bringing me back into focus. I glanced at my wrist monitor; thirty seconds until final bell. I could not postpone any longer, and so, with a heavy sigh, I placed my hand against the scanner next to the door. It whirred and clicked as it scanned my palm, deciding if I had permission to enter, and at some length turned green with a bright ding. The front door slid up, allowing me inside. I hurriedly stepped forward, wanting to the beyond the threshold before the bell, and met with the narrowed eyes of my mother.

"Where have you been all day?" She asked with a raised eyebrow just as the final bell shook the house. She knew exactly where I had been.

"I went for a walk." I answered. The half lie sent her right eyebrow up into her hairline, and she looked to be holding something in.

"You have chores, and who gave you permission to take Helper with you?" My mother demanded as the little cylindrical machine put away its rotary blades behind me.

She had always called Sparks by its brand name, refusing outright to call it Sparks. With an old stab of bitterness I thought that if my brother or sister had named the droid she would not have hesitated to take it on. Dwelling on my mother's favoritism did nothing, though, so I shrugged at her noncommittally and moved to walk around her. She stepped into my path, coming close enough for her perfume to assault my senses. Great. Putting on her perfume meant that mother had been smoking again, and _that _meant father would be livid somewhere in the house. Mother only smoked after they fought.

"Dishes. Now. Then homework." She mandated, pointing at the door to the kitchen.

Her boney fingers were covered by silk gloves, their pale pink color complimenting nicely the pale skin of her arm. On her slim frame hung a floor length, cotton pink gown that hugged her angular body as loosely as it might hang on a corpse. Her face might have been pretty once, but her extremely sharp cheekbones and narrow eyes swam in a sea of wrinkles now. Her black hair seemed to cling to her scalp for dear life, so tightly did she bind it into its bun, and the only life that seemed to dwell in her whole knobby body shone in the resentment that festered behind her chocolate brown eyes.

I shrugged again but turned and went through the door. The dishes were piled up in both sinks, and I thanked whatever god may be watching. The more dishes I had to wash, the longer it would take to finish, and if I had chores to do nobody bothered me. Below me the low thumping of a base drum vibrated through the floor, telling me that Damian, my older brother, could be found downstairs practicing for his next gig. I pulled my earphones from my pocket and shoved the tiny, cordless devices into my ears. The world instantly became quiet enough to hear my own heartbeat as I rolled my standard issue brown sleeves back and tapped the control screen over the sink.

It blinked into life, offering a whole menu of options. If I wanted to, I could have pressed the wash button, and the washing machine would throw its arms out to do my job for me. Mother liked hand washed dishes, however, and claimed that the machines never got them as clean as old fashioned elbow grease. In actuality, she only wanted to make sure that I could be placed out of sight at almost any given time, and she often threw clean dishes in with the dirty ones when she had guests over to lengthen the time taken.

"Dishwashing fluid dispensing." The wall chimed in a pleasant voice as a thin nozzle came out of a tiny hole in the wall and poured soup onto my waiting sponge. I knew the words so well I could have recited them at the exact moment they were said every time even if I could not hear them.

I pressed the button for hot water and began, enjoying the silence that my earphones brought without having to play any music. Washing dishes, besides being a sort of barrier from my family, actually became relaxing over time. I never complained at having to do them and even offered to when I needed time to myself. Thoughts of the exam floated to the forefront of my mind as I worked, and I felt a familiar hopelessness leaden my limbs.

I could not fly, and that meant that while other sixteen year olds were attending advanced flight lessons at the Institute for Higher Aviation, I had no choice but to continue year after year with the toddlers at Aviator's Academy. To advance meant to pass the flight exam. Aggravatingly simple, it only asked the children to fly through an obstacle course half a mile long that included such things as flying through large pipes and weaving through a line of flag poles. Every single year I failed to even make it off of the platform, but this year had to be different. In a month I turned seventeen, the age at which you legally become an adult, and to be the only grown adult in the entire world that could not fly meant shame on my whole family.

Footsteps vibrated into the room behind me, but I paid them no mind. By their weight they could only be my father's or Damian's. I prayed the latter and kept my head down as I worked, giving a particularly dirty bowl my best scrubbing power. The steps came closer, and a great shadow fell over me. With a sinking stomach I knew the only man it could belong to. Just as the realization hit home a large hand closed around my shoulder and spun me around painfully. My father in all his fury stood fuming, shouting something in my face. Wracked with fear, I pulled the buds from my ears too quickly and dropped one. It bounced off of my foot with a tiny clink, and I instinctively bent to pick it up.

"Don't you ignore me!" My father boomed, yanking me harshly back upright with the hand that had not let go of my shoulder.

"I'm-I'm sorry! I couldn't hear you, sir!" I stammered against the new throbbing in my shoulder.

"Where were you all day long?!" He demanded, shaking me.

"I w-went to the park after school." I confessed, looking anywhere but into his black eyes.

My father lived by one set of rules; his own. As the general of Nallion's standing army, the giant man had a certain way of viewing the world, and I did not fit in with his image. Standing at six feet and seven inches, the barrel chested man drove fright into any that had the misfortune of seeing him fly into battle decked out in full armor. Each hairy arm rippled with muscle that flexed now as he held me, and I dared not look up at his rugged face as he peered down at me with beady black eyes and furrowed brow.

"You almost missed curfew! Do you understand what I would have had to do if you had?" His gruff voice had gone dangerously quiet, and I quivered in his grasp.

"T-two day confinement?"

"TWO DAY CONFINEMENT FOR MY OWN CHILD!"

His voice hit my eardrums with the force of a sonic boom, and I had no warning to save me from his wrath as he twisted and threw me bodily across the room. I landed amongst the dining table's chairs, breaking one with a thrashing leg and hitting the tiled floor with enough force to wind me. I lay there gasping, not daring to get up. My father breathed heavily for several moments, his greased hair falling in strands into his face, before exhaling loudly and straightening his already immaculate shirt.

"I won't do it again! Please!" I begged him when he took a step towards me, throwing up my hands and backing as far as I could away from him.

My back ached dully where I landed, and my left leg stung where the wooden splinters of the chair had cut me through my pants. My father stopped a foot or so short, noticeably within striking range, and peered down at me with disappointment. I tried to stare at his army boots as meekly as possible through my gasping, and for a long, terrible moment the pained sound of my lungs sucking in air continued uninterrupted.

"I'm a very patient man, Morgan." He finally said, his voice more or less under control now.

I resisted the urge to relax, knowing the man well enough to know that I had not made it to safe water yet.

"Am I not a patient man?" He asked me, wanting me to agree with him.

I nodded feebly, fighting the tears that pain had brought to my eyes. Tears meant that you were weak.

"I won't be much longer." He promised darkly, kneeling down on one knee to breathe his next words into my face with stale whiskey breath.

"If you don't pass that exam in a week, you won't have a home to come to."

"Yes, sir! I'll definitely pass, sir!" I gasped into the floor, lowering myself as far as I could.

"Good. Finish your chores." He grunted shortly, and then as he stood he looked at the broken chair as if just realizing the damage he had caused.

"And get the Helper to put that chair back together."

"Yes, sir."

He left just as quickly as he came, leaving me to my pains and chores. Gasping against the throbbing of my already bruising side, I called out for Sparks. The droid showed up within a minute, and hooted in synthetic shock at my pathetic predicament. I ignored its fluttering and asked it to bring me a bandage, antiseptic, and to fix the splintered chair. It obeyed quickly, but not without a moment taken to shake its domed head at me. As if by some sarcastic miracle there were no splinters to remove, and within five minutes my leg had a fresh bandage wrapped around the two inch long gash the chair ripped into me.

Struggling to my feet, I made my slow way back to the sink and stooped to pick up my lost earphone. Placing it in my pocket numbly, I started the dishes again without the usual silence. I should have known coming home so close to curfew would be disastrous, but I just had to get a few more attempts in. My leg and hip now suffered for my folly, and I bit back my fury with determination. I would _not_ give these people the satisfaction of seeing me cry.

An hour later I placed the last bowl into the cupboard with the others and leaned back on my heels. By now the night had begun in earnest, and I knew that I would not be done with my homework until well after eleven. On top of the academy I still had regular school, which meant that I had to face the other kids every weekday. Most of the time I tried to stick to myself, hiding from all but Crystalia, but the others still sought me out at least once a week to remind me of my grounded fate. I kept my earphones in whenever I could at school if only to drown their mocking voices out.

Tonight's homework took time to complete but posed no real challenge. In all subjects I exceled, my grades easily the highest on every exam day. The one thing I had over those fools only served to have them mock me harder, but I did not mind that sort of teasing so much. I liked being smarter than them, and I went out of my way to learn everything I could so that it stayed that way. If I could not fly above them outside, I would do so in academics.

Finally, my whole body aching from head to toe, I closed my book and put it away. Tomorrow would be Friday, and that meant the last time I would have to face them for two days. I breathed in the weekends, reveled in the uninterrupted time alone. No one could stop me from being me on a Saturday.

The stairs downstairs proved particularly difficult to descend that night, my stiff knee making each step a danger, but I managed with a lot of help from the handrail. My bedroom called to me, and I went to it with a heavy heart. Inside, I collapsed onto the floor and let go. Every failed jump, every curious glance and mocking smile of that day came out of me in gut wrenching sobs that I quieted against the carpeted floor. My entire body cried out with each wretched breath, my heart beat a painful knot in the back of my throat as I let go of my despair.

Sometime later the tears ran dry, and I pushed myself back onto my feet. Stumbling almost blindly to my mirror, I leaned against it and took in the pitiful person that blinked back at me through swollen eyes. The girl scowled at me, her puffy lips dry and cracked, with light brown, bloodshot eyes. Her hair, black as the darkest night, stood up and out in all directions around her head as if she had just walked through the most humid jungle in the world, and three fresh cuts glistened wetly along her right cheek. Dozens of similar marks covered her face and neck from previous jumps, some still scabs and others pale white scars. The dark olive tone of her skin only served to make the lines stand out more starkly, shocking any that looked at her face unprepared. The scars traveled down her slender neck to disappear underneath a plain brown jumpsuit that clung too tightly to her leanly muscular body. She looked battle worn, and maybe she was. A slender hand lifted to rest against mine, blocked from actually touching by the barrier of the mirror. Slowly, she opened her mouth and spoke the same words she had spoken every night for sixteen years.

"Tomorrow. Tomorrow for sure."

* * *

**This is an experiment of mine, and I'm hoping that some of you might bless me with reviews to let me know whether the concept is good. I hope you all like it! If you don't, though, feel free to give me a scathing review telling me exactly how terrible I am! Please? I just want everyone's honest opinions. :) thank you for your time!**


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